Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt Are Very Serious in Space in the First ‘Passengers’ Poster

Now that summer is officially drawing to a close, people are preparing themselves for the shift from the blockbuster movie season to award movie season. Sometimes these movies have months of build up, with endless festival buzz and Oscar speculation; sometimes, though, a film is just sort of there, expected to do well because of its cast and crew but with no real hype to speak of. One such movie is Passengers, the high-concept science fiction film from Sony starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Much like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Passengers seems expected that special holiday mark between blend of big budget entertainment and art film sensibility.

And now, thanks to Sony (via Flickering Myth), we finally have our first bit of official marketing material for the film. Here is the theatrical poster for Passengers, complete with a futuristic font and some bland futuristic staring by its two lead actors:

Sony

As we discussed last month — when Entertainment Weeklyran the first official photos from the movie — the film does seem to be getting a relatively late start on their marketing and promotion considering the size of the movie’s budget ($120 million) and the prestige of its two leads. While there were whispers that an ongoing legal battle with one of the film’s VFX companies was putting Sony in a tough spot, we do know that some early footage from the film was shown at the exhibitors convention Cinema Con back in April. For a movie being released in the days before a major holiday weekend, though, you’d think that Sony would want Passengers to be on the minds of all moviegoers starting… well, honestly, starting about three or fourth months ago.

Here is the full synopsis from the films IMDb page:

The spaceship, Starship Avalon, in its 120-year voyage to a distant colony planet known as the “Homestead Colony” and transporting 5,259 people has a malfunction in two of its sleep chambers. As a result two hibernation pods pen prematurely and the two people that awoke, Jim Preston and Aurora Dunn, are stranded on the spaceship, still 90 years from their destination.

In addition to Pratt and Lawrence, Passengers also stars Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, and Aurora Perrineau. The film is expected to hit theaters on December 21.